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Events

The former Prime Minister of the Republic Kenya, The Honorable Raila A. Odinga, discussed the past 50 years of achievements and challenges on the continent as well as his vision for Africa over the next 50 years, with a particular focus on Africa's future engagements with China and the United States.

This event has been organized in order to discuss a new book authored by Patience Kabamba, Assistant Professor of International Studies at Marymount Manhattan College. In this work, Kabamba discusses the enterprises of the Nande trust networks and consequently aims to challenge the assumption that a “weak state” is synonymous with a “failed” society.

Malagasy democracy has been in what one participant termed a “state of turbulence” since a military coup d’état in March 2009. A roadmap to peace was signed in September 2011, and the CENI-T was formed in February 2012 as a formal body to manage the electoral process. The discussion focused on CENI-T’s activities to ensure a credible election, as well as the challenges associated with this process.

Effective local institutions are central to society’s ability to respond to the impacts of climate change. Our capacity to adapt is dependent on a wide range of factors with complex institutional arrangements: production strategies, land and water governance, social support systems, household and gender dynamics, availability of weather and climate information, and interaction with external actors, among others. The interaction between local and national institutions is also an important, and often complex, factor.

“Today we have a golden opportunity to use respectful maternal care to break new ground at the intersection of health and human rights,” said Lynn Freedman, director of the Averting Maternal Death and Disability Program and professor of clinical population and family health at Columbia University, at the Wilson Center.

In Ghana and the Philippines – countries where more than half of the population is under the age of 25 – two programs are teaching youth to play a critical role in their families, health, and community development. Leslie Mwinnyaa and Joan Castro discuss the innovative youth peer educator efforts of the Hen Mpoano Project in Ghana and EMPOWER in the Philippines.

Contrary to the deadly and deeply troubling situation in northern Nigeria and parts of the Middle Belt, ongoing insecurity, abductions, and politically-motivated violence in the oil-producing Niger Delta, a hotbed of unrest and instability just a few years ago, seems to be abating.